She was dressed to kill. Tight fitting, short black skirt, flaming red jacket, flared
over her midriff, black hose and four inch killer black heels. By far, she was the most attractive woman to run for national public
office in the U.S.
Dan Quayle, former Vice President, stood at the speaker’s
podium before an excited, almost rowdy crowd at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. It was Thursday, November 30,
2012, the last day of the Republican nominating convention. Representatives from northern states were glad they were spending, at
least a few days, in warm Tampa. The Wisconsin representative and his wife made plans to stay over for another week after the convention
ended, thawing out from the sometime cruel Wisconsin weather in November.
Dan
Quayle was introduced to the thousands crowded into the St. Pete Times Forum. Quayle had spend the past week tutoring the lovely candidate
on how to avoid embarrassing gaffs and goofs when being interviewed by the press or when speaking to the crowds.
Quayle
accepted the applause and began introducing The Candidate. He listed her accomplishments and then said, “And now I present to you
your leading candidate for President of the United States, the former Governor of her great state…”
The
thunderous applause gathered strength and drowned the final words of his introduction.
The
Candidate appeared from stage left and quickly walked to the Lucite podium. Dan Quayle exited with the blasting sounds of applause,
hooting and whistling assaulting his ear drums.
The rhythmic applause
continued as The Candidate waited to speak. Six minutes of fervent cheering passed.
Slowly,
the crowd quieted. People began to sit down and stopped applauding.
From
the podium The Candidate was saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
She
raised both hands palms forward and kept saying, “Thank you, thank you.”
The
Candidate began her presentation. “I thank you for your kind welcome.”
She
continued, “I am here to present to you some of my thoughts about things that are going on in this beautiful, green country of ours.
Here, as we sit and stand, we are only a few miles from that communist country of Cuba. It is there, in Cuba that the communist dictator
Fidel Castro rules a country that cannot afford a good living for its people.” I want to change that in America.”
“We
believe that the best of America is in our small towns that sometimes we get to visit. The best of America isn’t in Washington, D.C.,
although it is the capital of these states. Real America is being here with hard-working patriots, who are, um, uh, er, hard working
and patriotic, you know, patriotic and pro-American in what they think.”
“The
America I know and also love is where my baby won’t have to face a ‘Death Panel” so the bureaucrats can decide on their level of productivity
in society. A system like this is downright evil.”
“Maybe they do things
like that in the foreign country that is close to my home town near Russia. Sometimes in the early morning my husband and I can see
Russia from our patio, at least it looks like Russia, lot of snow, mountains and it’s very cold, much like our state. I know that
I can deal with that Putin fella, after all, he’s practically a neighbor to us.”
“I,
over the years, have learned about different countries. I used to hustle over the U.S. border to go to Canada for our health care.
It was better there, over the border and so, now I think, isn’t that strange. It’s a bit of ironocity.”
“On
our national level the President’s ‘Department of Law,’ there in the White House, should look closer at some of the things that their
people there are doing. You know, taking a closer look at the principalness and justocity of their actions.”
“As
far as my daughter and “The Dancing With the Stars,” goes, I am so very proud of her vote resulting. And she is correct when she stated
that if she won it was like giving the middle finger to all those who hate, both her and me. And I do want to thank all those Tea
Party people and their friends who voted for my daughter’s dancing. This proves how great America is.”
“I
also want to clear the air over that old interview with CBSs Katie Couric. I believe that it was a bit of unfairness that was on the
television screens when I was with Couric. Looking back I now know that what you saw was a lot of partisanization on her part. For
example, asking me which newspapers and magazines I read. I don’t know of anyone in my circle of friends who could answer that question
off the top of their brains. The truth is that I read many newspapers and magazines each day. I like reading printed things and I
learn a lot from words. I know this, I’ll never do another interview with a person who has so much biasity as she did, and maybe still
does.”
“I haven’t decided on a vice presidential person to run with me,
because that position, that is in charge of the U.S. Senate and becomes president if anything befalls me, when I am president, is
really important. There are a lot of people, especially men and women, who would be darn good as the second person in the White House.
You can bet your butt that I’ll be working on picking a top flight person to go running with me.”
“I
am really a ‘hockey mom.’ I have run for office, like the mayor of Wasilla, because I think I can bring better things to more people.
I have studied how mama bears care for their young and that’s what I want to do, care for young and old the same.”
“I
hope that by working together we can make a better America. Recently I was with some people and they asked me if they thought I could
beat President Obama and my answer was, ‘You betcha.” These same people asked me why I stopped being Governor of my state. I told
them the answer. The truth is I resigned because it would be better to have someone else as Governor so when I resigned there would
be a smooth transfer of the Governor’s duties and stuff that he or she does. It’s all very simple.”
In
a room in the back of the auditorium, the other top candidates, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Bobby Linal exchanged
glances. Huckabee leaned forward in his chair, looked at Mitt Romney and quizzically said, “You betcha?”
The
others in the room laughed.
Outside, in the auditorium, the former governor,
now a millionaire, finished her speech, offered her thanks and stood at the podium for twelve minutes as three thousand Republicans
clapped, whistled, hooted and stomped. They wanted more from her. They were enthralled.
Then
the throng began chanting, “Can we win? Can we win? You betcha! You betcha! Louder and louder they yelled and chanted, “Can we win?
Can we win? You betcha! You betcha!”
The Candidate smiled.